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This is a list of craters on Mars. Impact craters on Mars larger than 1 km (0.62 mi) exist by the hundreds of thousands, but only about one thousand of them have names. [ 1 ] Names are assigned by the International Astronomical Union after petitioning by relevant scientists, and in general, only craters that have a significant research interest ...
Pit craters are found on Mercury, Venus, [2] [3] Earth, Mars, [4] and the Moon. [5] Pit craters are often found in a series of aligned or offset chains and in these cases, the features is called a pit crater chain. Pit crater chains are distinguished from catenae or crater chains by their origin. When adjoining walls between pits in a pit ...
In addition, the central peaks of many large craters on Mars have pit craters at their summits. Central pit craters are rare on the Moon but are very common on Mars and the icy satellites of the outer Solar System. Large central peaks and the abundance of pit craters probably indicate the presence of near-surface ice at the time of impact. [50]
This list here contains only named Martian craters starting with the letter O – Z (see also lists for A – G and H – N). Large Martian craters (greater than 60 kilometers in diameter) are named after famous scientists and science fiction authors; smaller ones (less than 60 km in diameter) get their names from towns on Earth.
Pits are produced when material collapses into the void that results from the stretching. Pit craters do not have rims or ejecta around them, like impact craters do. Studies have found that on Mars a fault may be as deep as 5 km (3.1 mi); that is, the break in the rock goes down to 5 km. Moreover, the crack or fault sometimes widens or dilates.
The resulting action would cause a crack to form at the surface. Pit craters are not common on Earth. Sinkholes, where the ground falls into a hole (sometimes in the middle of a town) resemble pit craters on Mars. However, on the Earth these holes are caused by limestone being dissolved thereby causing a void. [15] [16] Knowledge of the ...
It is the fifth largest recognizable impact crater on Mars after Utopia, Hellas, Argyre, and Isidis, and the largest one with a near intact rim. The crater is approximately 467.25 km (290.34 mi) in diameter and can be found at 304.42°W 13.88°S, [1] in the Iapygia quadrangle.
Large troughs (long narrow depressions) are called fossae in the geographical language used for Mars. Troughs are created when the crust is stretched until it breaks. The stretching can be due to the large weight of a nearby volcano. Fossae/pit craters are common near volcanoes in the Tharsis and Elysium system of volcanoes. [2]